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2/16/2013

Good News: Delay Of ObamaCare's Launch More Likely

Health Care: Now that ObamaCare appears unstoppable, the question is can it be delayed? Thanks to bureaucratic bumbling combined with the law's massive complexity, delay appears to be increasingly inevitable.

On Thursday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told HHS to cough up details on how it plans to get ObamaCare "exchanges" ready in time in dozens of states.

Baucus' demand came after the Health and Human Services official in charge of implementing the law, Gary Cohen, issued the same bland assurances he has been for months that everything is on track for Oct. 1, when the exchanges are supposed to open for business.

But no one is buying it, especially since HHS has been late with everything else and has been secretive about progress on building the massively complex exchanges with just over seven months to go.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, ranking Republican on the committee, said, "I have a hard time understanding how the administration expects to have exchanges up and running by Oct. 1, especially when we have no details on how the exchanges will work in more than half the states."

In its latest budget report, the Congressional Budget Office also expressed thinly veiled skepticism that the exchanges would be ready on time. Even Baucus is worried, telling Cohen, "It's deeds, not words."

The situation in states trying to set up exchanges on their own isn't much better. So far, HHS has approved only a handful, and Politico reported a few months ago that states have been struggling with ObamaCare's massive IT requirements. Earlier this month, the Washington Post noted they also confront the "Herculean" task of hiring "an enormous new workforce" needed to help the millions expected to use the exchanges.

Even if these exchanges were up and running perfectly, it's a virtual certainty that ObamaCare will turn out to be a nightmare of central planning, massive market distortions and huge cost overruns.

Which is why ObamaCare must be entirely scrapped.

But the result will be utter chaos if the administration tries to get it started with a bunch of half-baked exchanges run by incompetent bureaucrats.

No wonder Democrats — who stand to lose the most if this thing blows up — are growing increasingly agitated as the ObamaCare clock rapidly ticks down.

Republicans need to seize on this and start pushing to scrub the launch. ObamaCare is unworkable.